Mon Voyage

(For Elvis, Edith Piaf, and All Whom Paris and New York Have Swallowed Whole)   

11-23-09                         by Mark Nielsen

Some days I feel about as important as a single telephone pole–

That one! There. See it?

Covered in kudzu vines,

Just one in a string of a thousand

across flat, hot, desolate Mississippi.

How important is it to fix a broken bicycle spoke?

Does a lynchpin ever know it is the lynchpin?

Who ever said that by doing something I love,

and doing it well,

The world would come running to hear it?

The world does not need me.

In fact, the world never knows what it needs.

Until it finds it.

At which point it immediately spoils it.

And the journey to glory

Est un voyage court à nulle part.

And as for talent:

Are you listening to these words,

Or just watching the way my hair falls across my forehead?

What profiteth it for a man

to talk real purty?

Or for a woman to belt out a sad song for her father?

Or for a child set adrift to paint a starry night?

The ruts in this road are deep, though.

It will take more strength than I have

On my own, in these arthritic hands,

To turn right up ahead when we see the road home.

(That is, if I’m not asleep at the wheel when it comes).

On the other hand,

at least I can’t turn around, either.

So take the wheel, St. Therese.

Where are we going?

While advertising agencies make many thousands of dollars promoting the Perth International Art Festival (PIAF), students from the Fremantle John Curtin College of Arts were expected to donate their time last Sunday, as extras for a TV commercial that was shot around His Majesty’s Theatre.

It seems rather strange that kids are expected to work for ‘fame’ only, while everyone else involved gets paid very well. Of course parents also had to ‘donate’ their time to get the kids to the location. Bad manners PIAF!

To stay with John Curtin. Why is it that the year 11 students finished this semester 4 weeks prior to the start of the official school holidays? What are working parents supposed to do with 16 year old kids roaming the streets and beaches without much supervision all day?

Roel Loopers

A post I’ve wanted to make for some time is how I came to be doing this at all.

I mean, I know I wrote this, right back at the beginning, which explains the why of it – but the how of it is down to the people who put me in a position even to think that someone like me could sustain a non-native bilingual existence with my first-born for a matter of weeks, let alone the 21 months we have so far clocked up between us, one day at a time (as we say in the After School Club.) 

I have been lucky and had a lot of talented teachers in all disciplines in my life, most of which was (at least, prior to the After School Club watershed) spent in full-time education. But a few of them have given me confidence that I was able to take outside the classroom, confidence which saw me through the lessons of the many rubbish teachers I have also had, and, in a way – though the faults are all my own – helped create the Francophone monster that is Papa et Piaf. 

Here they are. 

Martin was probably the first, though he came on the scene at about the same time as Nadia (see below). The first teacher to make me realise that French was a language that people actually used, rather than a verbal trigonometry. He smoked immensely and, again, his failing made him seem more human. He was a caustic, cynical man in some ways and regularly referred to hapless students as “cretins”, which was one of the many things I liked about him – he didn’t pretend to like everyone just because they were children. This meant that, if ever he did show signs of liking you, you could actually believe it might be true. 

And he was, in other ways, tremendously kind. I remember going to see him once after the lesson because I thought I didn’t understand the perfect tense (yes, I really was that much of a loser.) I ended up actually crying (a loser AND a wimp – hands off, ladies, I’m practically married!) When he saw how distressed I was, Martin spent half his break talking me through it (remember, this man was probably a forty-a-day smoker who self-medicated on Gauloises and must have lived for his breaks. )

Several years later, he also enlivened A-level by actually telling us things we might want to know, and hinting at the dirty bits in Camus. Without him, I probably wouldn’t have bothered doing French past GCSE.

Nadia arrived at our school when I was in what was then called the third year. She came to teach us Russian, taking over from a man who had learnt his Russian spying on Soviet air traffic. She was a real Russian; she was very short; she claimed to have a brown belt in karate; she was clearly mad. Nadia, again, made a language seem much more than lists of declensions (of which Russian has many). With her, we could imagine people actually living, loving, arguing, even doing karate in this then very rare language (perestroika didn’t really get underway until my GCSE year.) When I sat A level, Nadia coached me. When I applied to Oxford, Nadia gave me extra lessons, free of charge, which is basically what got me in. When I wanted to go to Russia, Nadia helped me sort it out, and gave me a few pointers on how to get extra hard currency through customs. When I thought that Chekhov was tosh, Nadia reassured me that I was not alone. And she also said one of the nicest things a teacher had ever said to me. We were flying to Moscow together. Somehow, we were talking about my family, particularly my mum. “Well, she’s done a good job,” said Nadia. It took me a second to realise what she meant and, when I did, I must have been pink with pride. A teacher thinking that I was not only a good student, but a good person? There was hope for me yet.

Mary was the one-woman welcoming committee when I arrived at Oxford. She had given me my place (when my first choice college had, foolishly, rejected me); she had patiently and politely answered some nonsense letter I had written to her before starting (about something nothing to do with her, like bedding or grants – I had so little idea about how Oxford worked that I just wrote to the only person whose address I had on paper, and it was hers, on my offer letter); and she welcomed me, along with my fellow first-year starters, into her North Oxford sitting room in October long, long ago. 

I was not, at that point, studying French. I was at college to do single honours Russian (the English faculty had decided it could struggle by without me.) I was amazed that I was at Oxford, and was liberated by having no idea what to expect. 

The intake that year seemed beyond good. A half-Russian man; a half-Polish woman; a frighteningly gifted man who had taught himself Hungarian for a laugh; and me. And this woman, Mary, was posher than anyone I knew – she had a ‘cello, for heaven’s sake! I almost gave up, there and then.

But Mary did not give up on me. Always quick with praise and measured with criticism; always acting as if my admission had been a considered choice and not a slip of the pen on some long, closely-printed list of names; always taking her students seriously, even when we spoke nonsense. After two terms, I had even started to believe her. 

Colin took me on when I decided that, though I still wanted to study Russian, the particular joys reserved for single honours students – extra linguistics, the Lay of Prince Igor and the Memoirs of Prince Avakkum, these latter two to be read in Old Church Slavonic – were not for me. He found a place for me in his already crowded French group.

As I made the group an odd number, he also agreed to see me individually for tutorials. As I began to develop interests, and as they began to align themselves with his, he would occasionally let me set my own essay title. He even gave me a 10-year-old bottle of home-made white wine, which turned out to be the best sherry I had ever tasted. This, I decided, was what Oxford was about. 

So much so that, after a couple of terms, in the last tutorial before the vacation (it was a hollow joke to call them “holidays”) I diffidently mentioned that I had been thinking of a future in academia. 

Silence. 

If, at that stage, he had turned around and started an awful, mocking impersonation of a deranged simpleton, it would not have surprised me. Of course I had been fooling myself. I was, perhaps not hopeless, but very much an also-ran, and clearly a pretentious one at that.

Instead, he said, quite quietly, “Yes, well. I was thinking of giving you a scholarship, but you don’t work hard enough.”

In a flash, several truths became apparent to me. I was not an idiot; I was not delusional; and, most important of all, the age-old myth fell apart. At school, I had been effortlessly successful. Then I had come to Oxford and had been effortlessly mediocre. I had assumed that my dear old mum was right, that the bar ha been raised and I could no longer clear it. Instead, it turned out, no-one here was effortlessly anything. The people who succeeded did so because they were very bright, but because they also worked exceptionally hard. I started taking their lead. The following term, I worked harder than ever before or since (as well as acting, rowing, and writing at a “jolly good sport” sort of level) and got my mini-scholarship (or “exhibition” as they call it). I went on to narrowly miss a First and come out of that with enough confidence intact to go on to do research at Edinburgh. Without Colin’s quiet honesty, I’d have ended up pretending to want to be a school-teacher and wondering why I hated my life (I did that anyway, years later – but at least I had a go at what I wanted to be.) 

Ian was the last one. Believed by his Edinburgh undergraduates to have it in for English loafers, he nevertheless took on an Oxford graduate, to all appearances a dilettante (it took me about a term to tell him I was working twenty hours a week and that that was why I was a bit behind on the reading) who came armed only with an undergraduate dissertation on Daniel Pennac, an author almost no one had then heard of, apparently word-processed by a five-year-old, and of which Oxford’s examiners could not decide whether it was a work of genius or the ravings of an imbecile. 

Ian gave me the benefit of the doubt and, when he realised I was broke, did all he could to enable me to make some sort of a go of my doctorate. He sent me to France twice; he found me teaching hours (my poor undergraduates, I am so sorry you were lumbered with me); he got me published; and he let me stay round his house once so I could return from Nice to do a conference paper. He also took me lunchtime drinking at the Southsider. Ian made me believe that, not only could I become an academic, but that I could live as an academic, perhaps for my whole life. The question of what the hell I was going to do with this bizarre commodity called life was finally, and to my immense relief, solved

Of course, I went on to piss all that up the proverbial wall, but that was no fault of his. And I did come out of it speaking really rather good French …

So, if any of the five of you end up reading this, thank you. I couldn’t have done it without you.

L’espressione  francese “voir la vie en rose” ha il suo esatto equivalente nell’italiano “vedere la vita rosa”, nel senso di essere ottimisti e privi di preoccupazioni per il futuro…

It strikes me suddenly that I have not given you any news of your favourite Ligue 2 side and mine, the Norman conquerors themselves, Stade Malherbe de Caen, for over a month!

So let’s put that right, right now.

14ème journée (Friday 6 November 2009)

SM Caen                     0-0                   Tours FC 

13ème journée (Friday 30 October 2009) 

Stade Brestois             2-0                   SM Caen

12ème journée (Tuesday 27 October 2009)

SM Caen                     4-2                   Vannes OC 

11ème journée (Friday 23 October 2009)

 SM Caen                     2-1                   Angers SCO 

10ème journée (Friday 16 October 2009) 

Clermont Foot             1-3                   SM Caen

Only one defeat all season to date – and that to the redoubtable salty sea-dogs of Brest! I couldn’t be prouder if I had actually heard of these teams.

Next match isn’t till next Friday when we take on a town that actually exists, namely Nîmes. This time, I’ll keep you posted. 

Parole de Caennais.

Bouche bée.

A friend recently sent me this link about babies crying “in” a language. “Does Piaf scream in a French accent for you and an English accent for her mother?” she asked. The honest answer is that, when she was crying in the sense that this article means, I didn’t notice (probably because I hadn’t read the article) and now, as her crying is of the sort of Ground Zero tantrum variety I have described previously , I cannot make out either language and have forgotten how to interpret non-linguistic communication.

Another germane piece of media was the Horizon documentary the other night, Why Do We Talk? Superficially, of course, it had nothing to do with bilingualism – it was much more about the wonder of what you might call “anylingualism” – but it provided real insights into how language “happens”; why children take language learning in their stride when, if you think about it, it’s a seemingly impossible task when you’re starting from scratch; and how we, as humans, have an instinct such that, in the absence of language, we essentially make one out of the most promising material to hand. All in all, the programme performed that very neat trick of bringing together a load of discrete odds and ends you already knew in such a way that you forget you ever knew them and it all seems fresh, simply because you’d never synthesised it all and drawn the appropriate conclusions.

I’m all in favour of the TV doing my work for me. It gives me more time to shoehorn my daughter into a coat – “MY manteau” – against her will.

Todo lo que he hecho toda mi vida es desobedecer.

You’ve waited so patiently for a clip, I feel I owe you something really special.

This is one of Piaf’s favourite songs at bed time – indeed, she has recently added “matelot” to her active vocabulary, a word she certainly doesn’t hear elsewhere.

However, as I still have some sort of life, I settle for singing it, rather than building it out of Lego and filming it.

Ohé!

“Stop pushing me!” Like a miniature Rambo, my daughter has developed language to let potential aggressors know that she is not to be messed with. The only problem is that no one has even touched her.

She has several of these little gems, tailor-made to convince a stranger that the right and Christian thing to do is to call the police, Social Services and Pudsey Bear this very minute – another favourite is, “no, daddy!” Add this to the tantrums and you have what can sometimes feel like manipulation. 

But it is still an overwhelmingly positive experience being her dad. I am proud of her. i used to think that that was something you said when a child (or other mental inferior you wished to patronise) had done something good. But it’s not. Not in this case, anyway. It means, “I’m proud of her” in the way you might be “proud” of a new suit, or the stabiliser-free bike you’ve just been given for Christmas. It’s not conditional on something you’ve done or achieved – it’s something that’s yours, that just IS, and it’s so beautiful and awe-inspiring and all-round brilliant that all you want to do is show it off with a big stupid smile on your face. 

As it happens, though, I’m proud of the stuff she does, too. She is speaking proper French now – by which I mean, she is choosing (to talk to me and not to talk to her mother) recognisable French words and matching them consistently to appropriate objects or concepts. Which I think is pretty impressive, actually. She is even starting to string them together occasionally.

There are issues around pronunciation – initial French “r”s get dropped, so that a pink dress becomes a “obe ose” – but I’m fairly confident that there are a few French kids out there with the same issue, given that the French “r” is like Kenneth Williams to the English “r”’s Sid James.

Likewise, she mixes up “bleu” and “vert” – but then she’s also mixing “blue” and “green” so that’s not so much a linguistic problem as a conceptual problem. Or maybe an eye problem – though she’s yet to express any interest in becoming a sniper or cartographer so it’s early days to be worrying about that …

So, Piaf, if one day you read this, “je suis fier de toi et l’ai toujours été.

“Now, please, can you say the word and get Esther Rantzen off my back?”

Well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Sorry about that.

The prosaic truth is that I’ve been busy – but also that (and this will shock everyone except you) the more interesting stuff Piaf does, the more time I spend dealing with the fall-out from said interesting stuff, and the less time I have to write about it. 

The main interesting things she’s been doing recently are looking cute and screaming. 

The cuteness angle she covers by being naturally pretty (yes, I’m biased, but other people say it too, even people who I suspect don’t really like me that much), wearing the wide array of impossibly posh clothes we never seem to stop buying her, adjusting woolly hats at rakish angles, jumping, and saying things like, “come on, daddy!” when you least expect it. A doddle, in other words.

 The screaming has been much more of a learned behaviour and one senses that she has put some real work into it, but it is nonetheless a very polished performance. 

She is stubborn, you see. Neither maman nor I can work out where she gets it from. (“She does like her own way,” said her nursery school teacher this morning. “So do I,” I said.) 

This morning was all about the shoes.

 Since our return from Lille, Piaf has become something of a dab hand at footwear. Her new “Charlotte aux Fraises” slippers – no trouble. Her new pink wellies with the flowers and the Japanese girls – such a breeze she cannot even be bothered to use the handles provided. Her old gold Clarks with the light-up soles – almost an insult to her intelligence. 

However, the latter, as well as starting to pinch the tiniest bit, disgraced themselves in Lille by flooding when plunged into a puddle (hence the trip to the welly shop) and have now been replaced with a much more robust shoe, purple in colour, and with a tongue. 

As Piaf has no experience of shoes with tongues, and because I hate to see her fail when I could help her to succeed, I decided that I would help her to put them on.

 Error. 

She said “no”; I said “si.” She pulled; I hung on. She pulled harder; I gripped. She let go and started to cry; I stood my ground. 

End of Round 1. 

As she rolled on the floor like an Italian striker, I said what I usually say in these situations; “tu me diras quand tu seras prête, hein?” When she seemed calm, I asked her if she was, indeed, ready. She was; but, as soon as it became clear that I had not given up on my evil plan to prevent her from spending an hour struggling with a purple shoe, Round 2 began. 

The final round saw her so furious, tired and sad that she was the same colour as the shoes, beyond words, screaming like Noddy Holder with his hand in a vice, while I struggled not to lose it and start crying (in my defence, she had woken up much earlier than usual and we were a little bit worried that she might be ill, so by this stage I couldn’t be 100% sure that it really was a tantrum and not, say, black, searing and mysterious agony.) Incidentally, by this stage, both shoes were actually on; she was not only beyond words, but beyond facts.

A dummy broke the deadlock. With the dummy came calm, and with calm she allowed herself to be picked up and cuddled, and with the cuddle came the reminder that face-offs come and go, but we fundamentally adore each other. 

Still both subdued, we made our way to nursery. As I signed her in, I heard her in the other room. She was laughing out loud. So much for emotional damage.

I would do it again like a sot, of course, because I cannot stand the thought of the alternative – a child who cannot stand not to get her own way, but also a child who never really has fun or learns anything because everything is just so hard and discouraging when you face it completely alone.

The other thing that struck me was that our life – I mean, specifically mine and hers – is bounded, to an unusual degree, by language. So much of what we do is guided, modified, sometimes even wholly driven by questions, not of practicality, but of the development of spoken communication.

And yet there are still so many parts of her life where, for want of a better expression, language simply does not work, where what she wants, thinks, feels is literally inexplicable through words. Not just because we speak French – she still mixes languages with both of us, English is still dominant overall, and yet she did not even attempt to explain what she wanted in either language. She just screamed.

To push the idea maybe too far, my early feelings about using French with her – could it really do the job, could I fully express myself, would I cope in extremis? – are very much like her current feelings about language in general. She remains sceptical that it is up to scratch. 

Until I can convince her that I am right and she is wrong – about anything at all, let alone about this – the Slade impersonations will continue, I fear. 

Come on – feel the noise!

Så blev det søndag igen.

Weekenden er forbi, jeg laver lektier og afleveringer, og prøver at huske hvad jeg skal huske den næste uge.

Denne uge har været lang. Rigtig lang.

Mandag var en ganske normal mandag med skole og Piaf.

Og så kom tirsdag.

Tirsdag fik vi at vide, at Morten fra 3. y var død om morgenen under en bilulykke.

Jeg selv gik i chok og græd det meste af eftermiddagen indtil jeg tog til boksning, og det var en god beslutning, for jeg havde ikke været til boksning i rigtig lang tid, så det var bare rart at komme væk fra alle de tanker der var omkring Morten og Alexander, Mortens rigtig gode ven, som jeg holder meget af. Han var sønderknust.

Onsdag var en underlig dag pga. gårsdagens hændelser, men ellers var den meget normal. Jeg scorede gode point i idræt, da vi skulle bokse, så jeg fik lige sat min lærer på plads, for hun gjorde det forkert.  Det var for en gangs skyld rart at være i Piaf, da det kun var mig og John der var der.

Torsdag tog jeg ud at svømme efter skole fordi jeg var så øm efter to dages boksning. Da jeg kom hjem spiste vi aftensmad, og så tog mor og jeg ud til ulykkesstedet og lagde blomster og tændte et lys og græd og mindedes.

Fredag var ‘the big day’. Der var MuSGfest om aftenen og alle skulle have noget mad med. Jeg havde kylling med. Det blev en sindssyg men god fest. 1.g’erne klarede ‘trappen’ flot, og alle blev for fulde. Det var fantastisk at vågne op om morgenen til Sørens smukke trommemusik og Simons lækre morgenmad! (som om!)

Om aftenen, efter en hurtig tur hjem med et bad og to timers søvn, tog jeg tilbage til Silkeborg, for jeg skulle hjælpe til på Rampen hvor ‘When the Saints Go Machine’ og ‘Freja Loeb’ spillede. ‘Freja Loeb’ skuffede. Det var ligesom en blanding af dårligt ‘Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ og dårligere ‘The Ravonettes’, men ‘When the Saints..’ gjorde det godt! Omkring kl. 00 tog jeg med Mikkel hjem og sov der.

Søndag morgen (i dag), havde Lucette, Mikkels mor, lavet morgenmad til mig og Mikkel og Gry, og så skulle Mikkel hen i kirken og synge, så jeg tog med. Det var super flot at høre Mikkel, Simon, Marlene og alle de andre synge. Jeg vil også¨meget selv gerne være med i kirkekoret, og lige i dag snakkede jeg med mor og far om at starte der og så flytte hjemmefra i 3.g så det bliver nemmere for mig at være med om søndagen. Jeg skal bare lige have snakket med min studievejleder først, men det kunne være så fedt at flytte til Silkeby!

Nu hænger jeg bare på en masse lektier og afleveringer og en dansk/historieopgave.

Jeg håber næste uge bliver lidt mere rolig.

//Maya

On pensait jamais bien voyager ensemble.  On est tellement différentes.

Encore aujourd’hui je ne peux pas totalement en saisir l’essence.
J’imagine que c’est juste quelque chose qui arrive.
Comme quand il neige et que tu marches dans la rue, et que pour une raison anonyme, il y a un flocon qui se pose dans ta bouche.

On s’était donné rendez-vous à Paris.

Dans un texte, comme ça, sur un blogue, «se donner rendez-vous à Paris» ça se mêle aux autres phrases sans qu’on y porte une attention particulière.  Mais dans la vraie vie, avec tes meilleures amies, «se donner rendez-vous à Paris» c’est plus qu’un évènement en soi.

Ça commencé avec du retard dans les avions.
Ça commencé avec presque 20h dans les machines volantes et les aéroports.
Ça commencé avec un appartement qui m’était prêté, dans un petit quartier de banlieue.
Ça finalement vraiment commencé, avec un miaulement de l’autre côté de la porte, et une bouteille de champagne qu’on a bue dans des tasses.

Après ça,
On était réunies.
Quatre.
Nous quatre :
À Paris.

Donc on fait ce qu’il y a à faire.
On module notre accent, et on trouve ça drôle.
On prend trop de photos, on squatte les musées, les statues.
On boit du vin à 2 euros sous les grandes pattes de la tour Eiffel.
On mange du confit, des croissants, et de la baguette.

Après Pigalle, on croise le Café des Deux Moulins.
Foire des péripéties cinématographiques d’Amélie Poulain.
On enjambe les pierres presque poncées des rues menant à Montmartre dans les petites collines abruptes que sont les rues y
conduisant.
On rit.
On est bien.
On est plus que bien
On est à Paris.

Nous sommes presque arrivées au point culminant de la butte aux artistes qu’on entend du Piaf.
On entend du crin grinçant sur des cordes.
On se regarde plus complice que possible.
On arrive.  Enfin.  Même pas essoufflée.

Un bonhomme est assis sur une petite caisse.
Sur son ampli.
Il a des lunettes rondes, et un dynamisme invitant.
Il est charismatique et humble.
Il ferme les yeux sous ses verres sphériques et happe son archet de passion, de sensualité, de ferveur.
Il déchaîne du Trenet.  La mer.

Encore aujourd’hui je ne peux pas totalement en saisir l’essence.
J’imagine que c’est juste quelque chose qui arrive.

On s’assoit.  Sans se consulter, le vote était unanime.
On s’imbibe.
Comme une éponge qui gobe.
Comme une étampe qui subit.

On était les quatre, à Paris.
Et après, on était les cinq, à Montmartre.
Nous et le violoniste.
Lui, son poil de cheval, et son coffre de bois.
C’était en fait juste ça.
Le violoniste qui entre son menton et son épaule, tenait le plus beau moment de notre rencontre.  Un moment inédit.   Un moment qui même en mots ne serait parlé pour lui-même.  Un moment où sans discuter, on en disait déjà trop.

À cet entretien, il y avait un lâcher-prise égorgeant.
Un abandon vulnérable et rarissime qui s’est imprimé dans nos annales incomprises.

Ce qui est inracontable,
C’est les meilleures histoires.
Ce qui nous échappe parce que c’est trop précieux,
C’est nous quatre et Paris.

I do not really believe in fate. 

Nevertheless, in future, I intend to steer clear of provocative questions such as, “what’s the worst that can happen?”

The weekend, you see, was an absolute nightmare. The big things fell into place – we caught the train with no problem, for example – but, as regards the medium and small things, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. 

Piaf was constantly demanding, sulky and prone to tantrums. Shopping was no fun. It was like my worst day ever of looking after her, multiplied by three, back to back, with no respite or support.

Oh yes. And we got locked out of our room on the first night and had to insist that the emergency locksmith be called out because all of Piaf’s stuff was in there. 

This is the shambles of an apartment-hotel we stayed in. I strongly recommend you never use them. True, the woman on duty was fantastic. But her initial response – and this was clearly policy – was to give us a different room and say that it would be sorted in the morning. For me on my own, that might have been acceptable if they threw in a discount. With a small, hungry, tired, nappy-rashed little girl, it was a non-starter. 

The best bit was to come the next morning, though. I had to drop the keys of the old (broken-locked) room at reception and let them know I was planning to stay in the (adequate-locked) replacement. “oh, yes,” the concierge said conversationally. “The locks are bad on that floor. They need replacing. Where are you now? On the ninth? Yes, that room’s a bit more spacious too, isn’t it?”

Now, if you are a hotelier or know a hotelier, I have a question for you. If you have two free rooms at the same tariff, and one of them has a dodgy lock and is smaller, why would you give that one to a paying customer instead of the bigger one with a working lock? 

Anyway, the whole trip was pretty much an ordeal, though there were some lovely moments – Lille has a fantastic zoo, for example, and a brilliant and busy children’s playground (which I found by asking strangers in the street if they knew of one – after all, why mention it in a guide book with a section called “Enfants”? Another shit purchase you would do well to avoid.

The trip was in some ways summed up by an event on the last day. Piaf was manageable largely because she is under the powerful spell exerted by ice cream. It is a miracle cure for all ailments and worries and we ate it each day, bonding over three scoops and two spoons. On the last day, I thought we might go to Meert, a “glacier” recommended by the same shit Petit Futé guidebook. 

Sure enough, the promise of ice cream lured her out of the playground, Pied Piper like. But now I had a promise to live up to, the ice cream parlour was quite a walk away, and time was actually looking quite tight if we weren’t to rush for the train. 

But when Papa promises, Papa delivers. We trekked to Meert. As soon as we went in, I saw it was far too posh for us – a bit like Oxford’s Randolph Hotel, if the Randolph let its staff have bad facial hair. 

Still, a promise is a promise. Beardy wisely seated us at a nice table at the back and gave us the menus. I read mine, Piaf threw hers on the floor. Time was really not on our side. 

Back came The Beard. I ordered a coffee. Where, I asked him, were the ice creams on the menu?

“Oh, we don’t sell ice cream. Not out of season.” 

“So, you are a glacier who does not sell glaces?” 

Apparently he was. 

We left, went just round the corner to somewhere very down to earth, got ice cream instantly and had more happy moments before going outside to watch a very organised gang of brass-playing buskers and then head for a packed Eurostar home. 

Did I enjoy our trip? No, not really. Would I do it again? Yes, although I don’t think I could actually organise it better than I did – I just think it was maybe a couple of months too early and that experience is the only thing that will make it easier next time.

Most pertinently, did it work? Did it have any effect on Piaf’s French?

In theory, it shouldn’t. Almost no one spoke to her except me; and, as her other main source of French was DVDs, it was not much different to being at home. 

And yet, all of a sudden, French words were appearing where previously there had been English words, and repetition was offered where previously there had been silence. I can only posit that, hearing me and everyone else speaking it non-stop, she started to believe that this was a real language rather than an elaborate game of her father’s, and to respect it accordingly. 

Monday morning saw us make a very fruitful first visit to Cadet Rousselle, but that can wait. I don’t want to over-excite you. 

In the mean time, here is the weekend treat I cruelly deprived you of.

It’s good to be back.

By the time you read this I will probably be underwater. Hopefully eating a croissant.

The tax that will take us to the train that will take us away under the sea and off to Lille is due in five and a half hours. If I didn’t have to book some last-minute travel insurance (lost E111- silly papa) I would not even be online.

I am, frankly, terrified. Having been travelling abroad alone for nearly 20 years, sometimes with a pathetic lack of planning, suddenly I am scared that I will not cope, that it will all go wrong somehow.

I am being stupid, I know – and it’s Lille, not Minsk. (Please, never go to Minsk ifyou can help it, even if you don’t have a child with you.) And I do speak the language (not that that improved Minsk.) What’s the worst that can happen?

I’ll let you know next time.

A day at home with what looked last night very much like ‘flu but now doesn’t. Piaf had it too but seemed better this morning – and, to be honest, I didn’t want to risk making her worse by keeping her with me. 

Lille is now all booked up and I have managed to come in on budget! Admittedly, it was the budget for a week and we’re actually going for three days, but it’s a learning experience, I suppose. The next stage is putting together the itinerary, complete with a Plan B for every single item on it, in case of bad weather/boredom/people being French and closing up with no notice on the flimsiest of pretexts (“but, monsieur, we are always closed on the third Friday of the month if the temperature is below 20 degrees – surely you knew?”) Plan A, however, includes a zoo, a playground, a puppet theatre and a toyshop, so, fingers crossed, it will meet with Piaf’s approval. 

Her French has made massive leaps all of a sudden. Not only is her vocabulary growing daily and not only is she pronouncing her words much more recognisably, but she is starting to show clear signs of choosing her words according to who she is speaking to. At the weekend, chez les grandparents, she and I were in the front room and she pointed to some wooden ducks. “Oiseaux!” she said to me (itself a word she has hardly used before.) Then her grandparents came through, as they had been separated from her for three minutes and were consequently jonesing for a fix. “Duck!” she said to them, pointing at the self same ornaments. 

Sometimes, the whole thing surprises me. “She’s speaking French!” I think to myself. “Where did she learn to do that? Oh, yes …” 

I have a very poor sense of direction. As a result, I will frequently get lost and have to ask the way from a stranger. However, because I have such a poor sense of direction, I will glaze over after the second “turn left at the lights” because what the stranger is saying is almost meaningless to me. I nod politely, drive off, and try to make sense of what I have just heard.

 When, in some cases, I come out where they tell me I will come out, I am invariably surprised. True enough, I was told it would be like this and I had no cause to doubt the stranger’s instructions – I was just sure it was all going wrong and, at times, nothing looked familiar. 

That is the feeling I have now. I followed the directions to the best of my ability, spent a lot of time convinced I had misheard or forgotten something key and, all of a sudden, “Ye Olde Red Lion” appears up ahead on the left and it looks like things might be about to turn out okay.

Like this? Try these. 

Je suis, tu suis, elle suit … 

J’explique, tu expliques, elle explique …

J’énumère, tu énumères, elle énumère …

Swinging Sixties à la française. Two cover versions that show why France is, was and always will be  the epitome of cool.

Lots of stuff to organise for Lille, which is now only a week away. Lots of things like – erm – where we’re going to stay … 

Like many naturally organisation-averse people, I am surprised afresh every time I do actually try to organise something at how time-consuming and hard it is. I mean, obviously, I suspect that – that’s why I’m organisation-averse – but I always assume that, because the majority of people take it in their stride, I am making too big a deal of it and actually it is really easy. 

But no, it really is long-winded and dull. 

I imagine the trick is to remain goal-focussed. Goal – tear-free, long weekend in Lille. Maybe including a trip to the zoo, lots of croissants, and buying a pair of red, pink or purple wellies (size 21 – I’ve looked it up. Perhaps I’m getting good at this organising lark after all.) 

Talking of organising, I acknowledged my limits in that direction only yesterday evening.

I had volunteered for some overtime at work. Nothing to do with my day-job, it involved going round the borough and knocking on, say, 500 doors to get stragglers to put themselves on the electoral register. Hard work, they said, but good money. Come along to a meeting. 

In my head, before I’d even got to that meeting, I’d spent the money – mostly on Piaf, of course. The meeting confirmed that the money was indeed good – even better than the sum I’d already spent in my head, in fact. 

But it also confirmed that the work was hard – and, more problematically, quite inflexible and time-pressured. I soon realised that I would be earning this money at the expense of time – evening cuddles, weekends out in our ancient but serviceable old man car – with maman and Piaf. 

By the end of the spiel my mind was made up. I approached the organiser and withdrew from the scheme.

I am the first to acknowledge that we are very lucky. That extra money would have been nice, but the honest, privileged truth is that we’re fine without. I certainly would not knock anyone else for taking up the chance I turned down. And, in my head, I am still wondering if, after all, I could have made it work out.

But, given that we don’t need it, here’s how I’m thinking deep down. It is highly unlikely, based on my own experience of life and the anecdotes of a thousand older, wiser parents, that Piaf will remember nothing of this stage of her life. Not a sausage. 

Nevertheless, if she does retain even the slightest subconscious trace of these early years, tucked away in a dark recess alongside apocryphal memories of stone baths and sunny days at the beach, I would rather that trace told of a father who tried to be around for her whenever he could, rather than a father who spent a fortune on Christmas one year but who never got to kiss her good night.

 Like this? Try these. 

Je fais du shopping, tu fais du shopping, elle fait du shopping …

Je câline, tu câlines, elle câline …

Je voyage, tu voyages, elle voyage …

I got a lot of my early support and guidance in this experiment from the parenting website Mumsnet and am still a regular on there. 

I was contributing to a thread on bilingualism there last night and remembered an incident from much earlier in the year, before I gave my whole life over to the service of this blog. Like last night’s blog, it revolves around a misunderstanding, so it’s mildly entertaining, and I thought it might be worth sharing on here too.

The thread I was responding to was basically asking if other parents spoke the majority language as a concession to their children’s friends and/or strangers in the park?

Absolutely not, I replied. (And it’s true, I don’t. What sort of message would that give to your child and to others? That your shared language is shameful, inconvenient, secret, “less than”? I’m speaking French, not shaking hands with a mason.) 

But I understand that mother’s question. After all, you don’t want to alienate other children either or, even worse, mark your own child out as odd or awkward.

To suggest a possible solution, and to illustrate how seriously I take this whole question, I related how, when we were still living in Peckham, we took a bus into Brixton one day. Piaf was okay on buses (just as well) unless and until she got bored.

On this occasion, my way of distracting her and keeping her calm was to read her a book. For this reason, even now, I never, ever take her anywhere without taking a book along too. 

As I was reading, I noticed the little girl in the pram wedged next to hers (busy bus) had started taking an interest too. What should I do? I had heard the girl’s father say a few words in English, so it was unlikely that she would follow the French; but if I read it in English, I would be letting me and Piaf down, and maybe confusing and upsetting into the bargain – which, obviously, was the antithesis of the goal of reading to her in the first place. 

What I ended up doing – there, on the 37 from Peckham to Brixton – was reading the page in French, then translating it into English for the other little girl. And I did this for the whole book. Both girls seemed to enjoy it, and neither one got upset or bored or started crying.

Then the other girl and her dad got off one stop before us, and I realised that they were Portuguese.

Like this? Try these. 

J’habille, tu habilles, elle habille … 

Je change, tu changes, elle change …

Je babille, tu babilles, elle babille … 

Je confesse, tu confesses, elle confesse …

The fact that Piaf understands French is no guarantee that she will act on that understanding. 

Tonight, bath time slipped a bit, so that it was already late when we started getting ready for bed. Piaf cleaned her teeth (and mine) and we got her pyjama bottoms on. 

She grabbed the top off me and started trying to put it on herself. Her face was a mask of joyous concentration. I could see that this could end up taking some time.

“Tu veux que papa t’aide?”

“Non.” 

“Piaf, c’est un maillot. Laisse-moi t’aider.” 

“Maillot.”

 “Oui, c’est ton maillot. Laisse-moi t’aider, ou nous n’aurons pas le temps de lire Charlie et Lola.” (I caved in and ordered it in French from Canada. Quel mug!) 

“Lola-book.” 

“Oui. Tu aimes Charlie et Lola, hein? Alors, laisse-moi t’aider.” 

“Non.”

 “D’accord, c’est comme tu veux, j’ai tout mon temps, moi.” 

Nevertheless, minutes went by and we were getting nowhere. Try as she might, she could not get this top on. Even I was starting to get impatient for milk and for Charlie et Lola. 

I made an executive decision. I held out my hand and swiftly – but not roughly – I took her legs out of the pyjama top, passed it smoothly over her head, sat her on my lap and started to read.

Like this? Try these.

Je suis fatigué, tu es fatigué, elle est fatiguée …

Je confonds, tu confonds, elle confond …

Ils sont vraiment, ils sont vraiment, ils sont vraiment phénoménaux lah-la-la-la-la-lah-lah, lah-la-la-la-la-lah! 

Feel my wrath, Sedan!

Jakoś się tak strasznie rozpędziłam! W całym tym zabieganiu zapomniałam o świecach, o jazzie, o cygaretkach, o Piaf…o sobie. O ciszy, która nie boli.

Dziś jest mi smutno, bo zawsze żyłam przekonaniem, iż jestem jedną z tych, które nie chcą podejmowac kompromisów, kosztem których rezygnują z siebie – a co za tym idzie nierzadko zostają same. I choć jest im z tym w sumie dobrze, brak linearnej, stałej inspiracji w postaci drugiego człowieka czasem zasmuca.

Dziś pozwalam sobie na żałobę. Na jeden wieczór, kiedy przez chwilę nic nie robię. Póxniej pewnie będę…ale teaz, na kilka chwil, zamknę oczy i pomoglę sie do wszystkim moich bożków i aniołów o siłę i o ciepło. A potem otworzę oczy i będę..

..sobą.